


Till Human Voices Wake Us (The Nobody's Sons Remix)

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-29
Updated: 2007-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can fix the car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Human Voices Wake Us (The Nobody's Sons Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> A remix of "Strange things could never change my mind" by nymeria.

The shower is lukewarm and tastes of rust, stale well-water shuddering through old pipes, and his skin is covered with goose-bumps when he finishes. Dean dries himself with a threadbare towel and tucks it around his waist. He doesn't shave or even wipe the steam from the mirror, just pulls the door open and thinks about the roughness of the wooden floor on his bare feet.

Their little room at the back of Bobby's house is cold and Sam isn't around. There are two narrow beds, both rumpled and unmade because Sam always starts in his own. He always lies down across the room and breathes in silence for an hour, two hours, half the night before the old wooden frame creaks and his feet hit the floor, the edge of Dean's bed dips and Sam curls against him, long arms and soft, warm breath. His hair tickles sleep-sensitive skin, bruises that are still healing and silent tears as he whispers nonsense against Dean's chest. It's the same every night, ever since--

And every morning Dean wakes up under Sam's gentle, worried gaze.

Dean tosses his wadded-up dirty clothes into the corner, adding to the pile of jeans and shirts and boxers streaked with dirt and engine oil, stained with sweat and come, messy enough and gross enough now that Sam will do laundry tonight or tomorrow. He'll do the laundry without being told, cursing and kicking Bobby's ancient machine into cooperating. He'll hang it up to dry, bring it in stiff and cold from the relentless South Dakota wind, fold it into neat piles and say nothing at all when Dean shoves it all onto the floor without a glance.

Nothing at all, and still Dean wishes he would shut the hell up.

Pair of jeans that's not too wrecked, his last clean shirt, socks and boots and one of Sam's sweatshirts for the cold that comes with the twilight, and Dean heads out to the yard again, footsteps like a storm trooper's marching through the quiet little house. Bobby is back now, sitting at the kitchen table and talking on the phone; he nods slightly when Dean passes by, and he doesn't blink when Dean ignores him.

Sam is still nowhere to be seen.

His tools are just where he left them, scattered about on the ground like tiny monuments, a cemetery of drop-forged steel in the junkyard dust. Dean lies down and slides under the car, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut against a sudden dizziness. The doctors gave him a clean bill of health -- _we don't understand_, they said, puzzling over x-rays and charts, _this is impossible_ \-- but he can still feel invisible claws raking through his chest and closing around his heart, bitter and metallic blood rising in his throat and a cold, tight feeling in his gut that hasn't faded since he opened his eyes.

He swallows painfully and concentrates on breathing, waits for the world to stop spinning.

_It's not fair._

In, out.

_Not fair._

Reaches blindly, fingers crawling along the gravel beneath the car.

_Life's not fair, Dean._

In, out, inhaling the familiar scents of dust and oil, rubber and steel.

_Did he say anything to you before he--_

Finds the smooth handle of a wrench and drags it closer, scraping a trough in the ground.

_Not fair._

Holds his breath until it starts to ache.

_I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay?_

Thinks about the car jacked up over him, three thousand pounds of bent and twisted metal, scarred and marked and stained with blood.

_Yeah, Dad. You know I will._

And Dean exhales slowly, opens his eyes, and gets back to work.

Elbow-deep in the familiar tangle of steel, he scarcely notices the afternoon slipping away. The sun goes down and the junkyard floodlights come on, the temperature drops and his hands grow cold. When he can't see what he's doing anymore, when he starts to scrape his knuckles and catch his skin on sharp edges, he climbs out from under the Impala and pops the hood, angling awkwardly to the side so his own shadow doesn't block the light.

Another spot, another problem, another puzzle, another collection of parts added to the list he'll give Bobby in the morning, and he's startled when the front door of the house slams and Sam's footsteps crunch on the gravel.

"I made dinner."

Dean straightens up and turns around, rolls his shoulders and flexes his hands. His neck aches and his arms are tired, and he feels a twinge of pain in his back when he reaches for the steaming bowl Sam passes to him. Spaghetti, cheese, sauce from a jar. Sam can't cook worth shit and Bobby is even worse, but food is food and Dean's stomach is reminding him loudly that he hasn't eaten since breakfast.

Sam has another bowl in hand, and instead of going back inside he wanders across the yard to the torn-out bench seat of a VW Transporter that's probably been retired since long before Woodstock. He sits down and stretches his legs out, leans back and makes a face of ridiculous surprise when the bench almost overbalances.

Dean watches him from across the yard, all long limbs and angular shadows in the floodlights, and he looks away quickly when Sam glances up.

"You just going to stand there and stare at it all night?" There's a note of teasing desperation in Sam's voice, too forced and light, but it's enough to spur Dean from his awkward stance by the car and over to the bench. He sits down beside Sam, and they both freeze as the seat rocks precariously. After a moment, they relax again, and Sam says, "How's it coming?"

The question, so casual and innocent, the same question Sam's asked every day for the past few weeks, catches Dean like a punch to the gut. He goes still with his fork raised halfway to his mouth, mess of spaghetti wrapped on the tines, and he knows Sam is waiting.

Dean says, "Fine."

And it is. Crouched in the junkyard like a wounded predator, dull with dust in the yellow light from the windows of the house and surrounded by skeletal frames and rusted corpses of discarded machines from decades past, the car doesn't quite look like herself again, not yet, but Dean can see how she will. He knows where she bent and where she broke, what can be salvaged and what must be replaced, what will be the same when he's done and what will be different. He can look at her now without the vise-grip of strangling horror that he felt when he first stepped out of Bobby's truck into the yard, the antiseptic smell of hospital still clinging to his skin and Sam hovering too close and too tense beside him.

"Good," Sam replies.

Sam leaves it at that. He doesn't offer to help again, doesn't ask if Dean is okay. He seems intent on his dinner, shoveling spaghetti into his mouth with single-minded focus, steam rising from the bowl, the silver fork flashing when it catches the light. His hair is damp against the long line of his neck, and he smells like soap, clean and fresh and warm in the deepening chill of the night. Dean wants to reach out and curl his fingers around the back of Sam's neck, pull him close and taste his skin, but he doesn't move.

Desperation and hurry in the harsh light of afternoon is one thing -- open and grasping beneath the blue winter sky, Sam heavy and awkward on top of him, all of his grace and calm lost with his hands twisting in Dean's shirt and his hips thrusting unevenly, salt and sweat and friction and weight and motion, anchoring Dean and surrounding him -- but this is the night, and the night is different. The night is for too-small beds and too-soft sheets, the warm comfort of curling together and the painful ache of waking from old nightmares to remember that they've come true.

Dean wonders why Sam's hair is still damp, why he waited so long to shower. He wonders where Sam spent the day, how he passed his time, if he went around all afternoon and evening with the smell of Dean on his skin and the taste of Dean on his tongue.

He wonders, but he says nothing.

Sam finishes first. He sets his bowl on the ground, leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, but he makes no move to leave. Dean eats in silence; his spaghetti has gone cold and the sauce is congealed, each bite more disgusting than the last, but he chews slowly, methodically, and he doesn't look at Sam anymore.

When he's done, he hands the bowl to Sam and says, "I still have a lot to do tonight."

"It's getting pretty late."

Dean stands up and wipes his hands on his jeans. "Don't wait up."

He kicks at the gravel as he walks back to the Impala, and gets to work. He hears a resigned sigh -- _life's not fair, Sammy_ \-- a metallic clank, and the clatter of bowls and forks as Sam stands up, dishes in hand. Footsteps cross the yard, the door opens and the door slams. Time enough for Sam to set the bowls in the sink, squirt the soap and run the hot water, say a few words to Bobby and walk down the hall to the back of the house. The light from their bedroom flickers as Sam's silhouette fills the window, but Dean doesn't look up. He knows Sam is watching, leaning against the window pane, nose pressed to the glass like an anxious kid full of worry and questions, waiting for his brother to tell him things will be all right.

And waiting.

Not yet, Sammy. Dean almost turns around, almost raises his face to the warm light from the house and whispers the words, but the moment passes and he fits a socket over a bolt, ratchets and strains and doesn't let himself think about anything except what needs to be taken apart.

And the glass is fragile and the night is cold, but between them there's nothing but the sound of Dean's own breathing, his tools in his cold, aching hands, metal on metal and prairie wind whispering through a graveyard of abandoned cars.


End file.
